What is a guitar, anyway? That’s a question Karhide has been asking for more than a decade now.

From early releases that coupled the blowtorch intensity of Pelican with the assembly-line heaviness of Godflesh, his initial answer seemed to be a declaration of war.

On Erasable Assignments, Karhide’s approach to the guitar is much more expansive, sketching out scopic vistas, the guitar a texture at times indistinguishable from the myriad synths and pads on tracks like album centrepiece “Walker Circulation”. What is a guitar? We’re not sure any more.

This time around, as the span of Karhide’s music grows, you’re more likely to find a reference to the gods of soundtracking like Olafur Arnalds, John Carpenter or Trent Reznor than to his earlier influences like Big Black or Fudge Tunnel.

Unlike previous album All Lost, All Gone, composed entirely on the road in that dreadful space between check-in and check-out, in locations as far-flung as South Korea and Botswana, Erasable Assignments comes from a place of stability.

A change in lifestyle, a year spent in one place, and a studio stripped down to the absolute essentials allowed Karhide...  more
credits
released November 13, 2020

Mastered by Antony Ryan at RedRedPaw www.redredpaw.com

Erasable Assignments

Abort. Abort.

Even the word itself sums up what many of us would have liked to be able to do over the last eighteen months.

Alarm and abort. Reset, turn off the world.

Instead, Karhide took the moment to reset and turn inwards.

Inwards, and away from the electronic ambiences of recent releases. Inwards, and towards a powerful expression of everything that’s been happening to us since 2020.

The result is Abort, an album that - almost impossibly - melds the slowcore rhythms and oppressive atmospherics of prime Codeine with the sheet guitars of Deafheaven and the epic delicacy of Jesu. And does so all without words to lean on.

Karhide’s third album comes just one year after Erasable Assignments, a record that was assembled under entirely different circumstances, composed under the influence of that particular mania caused by too many time zones, too many hotel rooms, and a world moving too fast around him.

Abort could hardly be any more different - composed under lockdown in a world that simultaneously slowed to a glacial crawl, but changed more rapidly than any of us could have conceived, it’s a slow and demonstrably powerful contemplation of where we find ourselves in 2021, with every instrument played, performed and programmed by Karhide.

Vast walls of dense guitars dare the listener to scale them as one might tackle El Capitan, while rich, warm synth pads invite you to begin the challenge. “Switching Routines” is This Will Destroy You set to a midnight drive through downtown Los Angeles, while “False Flag” comes across like Russian Circles blowtorched by an army of robots.

Ultimately, the album’s closing piece - an urgent, propulsive eight-minute epic that distills the Karhide vision into one fist-clenching rejection of 2021 - could only be titled “Restart”.

Alarm, abort, then restart. We’re ready to go again.

Abort

Fors Tracks

Apr-Jun

The bass heavy metallic churn of opener 'Dirigo' wouldn't sound out of place on Pelicans debut EP, while 'Ride' melds soft, shimmering guitars, lush synth textures and skittering electronics to stunning effect - Rock Sound

Karhide - Acadia

Waitlist

What is a guitar, anyway? That’s a question Karhide has been asking for more than a decade now.

From early releases that coupled the blowtorch intensity of Pelican with the assembly-line heaviness of Godflesh, his initial answer seemed to be a declaration of war.

On Erasable Assignments, Karhide’s approach to the guitar is much more expansive, sketching out scopic vistas, the guitar a texture at times indistinguishable from the myriad synths and pads on tracks like album centrepiece “Walker Circulation”. What is a guitar? We’re not sure any more.

This time around, as the span of Karhide’s music grows, you’re more likely to find a reference to the gods of soundtracking like Olafur Arnalds, John Carpenter or Trent Reznor than to his earlier influences like Big Black or Fudge Tunnel.

Unlike previous album All Lost, All Gone, composed entirely on the road in that dreadful space between check-in and check-out, in locations as far-flung as South Korea and Botswana, Erasable Assignments comes from a place of stability.

A change in lifestyle, a year spent in one place, and a studio stripped down to the absolute essentials allowed Karhide...  more
credits

released November 13, 2020

Mastered by Antony Ryan at RedRedPaw www.redredpaw.com

Constant Pool

Delta

Stooge

Dirigo

Jordan

Provider

Ride

Switching Routines

False Flag

Revision 055

Ephemeris

Display Angles

22 May

30 May V2

05 June

06 June

07 June

17 June

19 June

20 June

22 June

23 June

18 Sept - Engagement Supervisor

28 Sept - Separation

07 Oct - Unqualified Endeavor

08 Oct - Netting Compromise

09 Oct - Colt

10 Oct - Bells

17 Oct - Sequential

18 Oct - Lockout

18 Oct - Shaper

20 Oct - Adhesive

22 Oct - Rusty

28 Oct - Greenhouse

30 Oct - Itch

31 Oct - Dusty Retaliation

01 Nov - Sarcastic pager

02 Nov - Oddball

14 Nov - Helpless Operation

22 Nov - Tap

23 Nov - Chalkboard

25 Nov - Abolish Lightness

28 Nov - Crescent

29 Nov - Fortunate Appropriation

30 Nov - Umbilical

01 Dec - Aerosol Mask

Inspired by the fragility of complex systems and the shifting climate, my new album Model Ensemble Drift is available now, blending ambient textures with glitchy rhythms to create a soundtrack for a world in constant flux.


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